Mathematics

The British were able to keep their codebreaking efforts at Bletchley Park secret for decades after the end of World War II. David Boyle’s Enigmas consists of three short, complimentary books that combine to give readers a brief but thorough look at the origins and...

We learned with great sadness of the passing on March 28 of Richard Tieszen (1951-2017), the author of Simply Gödel, a new book in our Simply Charly Great Lives Series. The book, to be published April 11, traces the life, career, and major accomplishments of...

British mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing (1912-1954) broke the Nazi Enigma code during World War II, playing a crucial role in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Yet, for all his genius and contribution to the war effort, the life of this soft-spoken visionary was marred...

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) was an English theoretical physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. In 1933, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Sir Michael Atiyah is one of the world’s greatest living mathematicians...

What, if anything, does sports gear have in common with the field of mathematics? And, even more to the point, what role did a Swiss mathematician living in the 1700s play in the creation of the decidedly modern, 21st-century football helmet? Actually, quite a bit....

Alan Turing (1912–1954) was an English mathematician, logician, pioneer of computer science, and wartime code-breaker. He is credited with creating a design for the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE), the early electronic stored-program computer, as well as the Bombe—a decryption device that the British government used during WWII to crack the German “Enigma,” machine, which encrypted secret...

It is not an easy task to use colorful narrative to explain the complexities of mathematics to the general public. But Dr. Amir D. Aczel (1950–2015), who passed away on November 26, was able to do just that, in a way that engaged the interest...

Charles Sanders Peirce was an American philosopher best known as the “the father of pragmatism”—America’s only home-grown philosophy—who made important contributions in the areas of science, logic, and philosophy. Cheryl Misak is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. She has written widely on American pragmatism,...

What is infinity? In life and mathematics alike, it is an abstract concept referring to something that is endless and limitless. Philosophers and mathematicians of yore, from ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle to Renaissance thinkers such as Isaac Newton and Galileo, had tackled this...